Wegovy and Ozempic owner dealt blow as next-gen weight-loss drug is branded ‘obsolete’ | Pharmaceuticals industry
The owner of Wegovy and Ozempic suffered a major setback as its highly anticipated new weight loss treatment was labeled “obsolete” after disappointing clinical trials.
Shares of Novo Nordisk fell sharply on Monday after test results for the Danish company’s CagriSema drug failed to meet investors’ expectations.
The weekly injection combines an amylin analog with GLP-1 to regulate metabolism, suppressing appetite and making users feel full more quickly. This means that CagriSema was expected to result in greater weight loss than Novo’s hugely popular Wegovy and Ozempic GLP-1 injections.
The study was designed to show that CagriSema is at least as effective as Zepbound, Novo rival Eli Lilly’s main anti-obesity drug, which contains tirzepatide.
Against initial expectations of a 25% weight loss, CagriSema disappointed in a late study of 809 people. This led to an average weight loss of 23% after 84 weeks if all people took the treatment, compared to 25.5% for tirzepatide.
The new Novo treatment “did not meet its primary endpoint of demonstrating non-inferiority in weight loss for CagriSema compared to tirzepatide after 84 weeks,” the company said Monday.
Søren Løntoft Hansen, senior analyst at AL Sydbank, told Marketwire: “It’s kind of a swing and a miss. ” He added: “It is difficult to assess whether this data will influence Novo Nordisk’s decision to launch Cagrisema on the market. »
Novo’s stock price plunged 16% following the news, bringing its losses over the past year to nearly 60%, while Lilly’s stock rose more than 3% in pre-market trading.
Novo, which had seen booming sales of weight-loss and diabetes drugs that made it Europe’s most valuable company in recent years, repeatedly cut its profit and sales estimates, losing ground to Lilly. Novo had relied on CagriSema – as well as its new pill Wegovy – to revive its sales.
UBS analysts had already in January lowered their peak sales forecast for Novo’s GLP-1 drugs from $80bn (£59bn) to $75bn in 2032, following previous disappointing results from the CagriSema trial.
They said Monday of the latest results: “Significant negative. An inferior result to tirzepatide was very unexpected.”
“Let’s commit to the bottom line,” Deutsche Bank’s Emmanuel Papadakis told Novo’s management on a call with investors. “CagriSema now appears somewhat obsolete as a competitive upgrade to semaglutide…or as a competitive alternative to tirzepatide.”
Novo chief executive Mike Doustdar dismissed the comments, saying: “It’s quite belittling, it’s a fantastic drug in all honesty. When CagriSema hits the market early next year as the first amylin product, it will have the best weight loss label. [of] any marketed product.
Novo hopes that another trial of a higher dose of CagriSema will yield better results. The company has already submitted the drug to the US drug regulator for approval based on evidence from previous trials, and hopes to get the green light later this year.
